


Five Frozen Butterflies

by MaethorialBelle



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Daddy Cullen, F/M, Kid Fic, domestic fluff at the start, mage child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-17 01:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4647885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaethorialBelle/pseuds/MaethorialBelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s just a normal morning in the Rutherford household, until Cullen discovers that one of his children possesses magical abilities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Frozen Butterflies

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick update to say that, at least for the moment, this is now a one shot. My headcanon for Maerwynne & Cullen has changed (partly because of the trespasser dlc) and so this universe doesn't exist now. I'm so, so sorry if you were waiting for the last part, I feel pretty awful about this.

Cullen shuffled into the living area, his head already pounding from a night of broken sleep, wondering how a house filled with four children could be so noisy. Or rather, how a house filled with four children could be so noisy, when all the noise was coming from only one wild-haired child.

“ _Rosa_ ” he groaned, lifting a hand to lose it amongst his crown of curls. “I think it may be a little early for a game of  _ride the griffon_.” His daughter had more energy than a chased rabbit and the speed of one too.

Rosalia, with her raven ringlets and baggy nightdress, stilled mid screech, scowling as she fisted her hands against her hips.  _Ever her mother’s daughter_ , Cullen scoffed. “It’s not  _ride_  the griffon daddy, I  _am_  the griffon.” Her hair swayed about her face as she shook her head, disbelieving of how her father could make such a huge mistake about something so very important. 

“Well can you be a very quiet griffon, or perhaps one that doesn’t like to wake before breakfast?”

Rosalia gasped at Cullen’s words, her small hands flying to her mouth at the terrifying memory prompted by them. “Mama’s making toasty bread and eggs” she warned her father with a widened, worried stare. “You need to help or else they won’t taste good.”

Perhaps he should have scolded her, told her not to be so rude when her mother always tried her best for them all. Cullen laughed instead, after all, the girl wasn’t wrong. “Perhaps I’ll just go and do that,” he assured her, tangling his hand in her sleep-mussed mane, “will you try to keep the noise down, for me?”

Rosalia looked to him with ice-blue eyes, a gift from her grandmother who’d passed long ago, and a beaming grin missing all of three teeth. “I’ll play sleeping dragons instead” she whispered, already running off to collect numerous blankets and pillows to create her lair.

Cullen made for the kitchen, his brow cocked in curiosity at the closed door keeping him out, his wife having barricaded herself inside; probably with the mess of half a dozen eggs and their shells splattered across the floor. He entered with cautious steps, the kind reserved for wary prey, his tentative push upon the wooden door making the old hinges whine.

“Do I smell burning? Again!”

If his wife’s cry hadn’t alerted him to the dire state of breakfast, the instant smell of blackened bread certainly would have. “I’ve got it” Cullen said, hurrying over to the fireplace before she could, not wanting their son, who sat snugly against her hip, anywhere near the searing flames. “I may have said this before,”  _try a dozen times before,_ “but I can’t help thinking that this isn’t the best way to toast bread.” He prodded the charred remnants with a fire poker, frowning as scorched chunks fell through the slits of the makeshift grill rack and into the pit below.

“There’s a lot of mouths that need feeding, and this is the quickest way to make sure they get fed,” Maerwynne scoffed, “when it works anyway, which it  _does_.” Despite her bluster, and wrinkled nose from the lingering smell, Cullen could see the gleam in her eyes from a hidden smile, his own smirk obvious as she stepped closer gifting him with a good morning kiss. “Hold the baby” she mumbled against his mouth, breath sweet from her honey tea. “I should probably keep a closer eye on the food, can’t have you saying  _I told you so_.”

“That certainly wouldn’t do.” Cullen closed the distance once more, stealing another kiss, his laughter stifled against his wife’s lips as their son began to grumble. “All right Leo,” he drew the boy, not quite a baby, into his arms with a grunt, “I can take a hint.” Elliot was the spitting image of his father, from his blonde mop of curls to the honey hue of his eyes. Maerwynne had teased that it was Cullen’s fault for the resemblance since he’d taken to calling her baby bump Cullen Jr. Of course, that was a foolish notion, he’d done that for each of her pregnancies and only two of their children had ended up with his likeness.

“Allow me to help” Cullen pleaded as he shifted his son, trying, but failing, to keep his eyes off the surrounding chaos, “if you’ll just-”

“I’ve got it, Cullen, thank you.” 

He wasn’t sure she’d meant that thank you, especially when the tips of her fingers poked at his chest, edging him backwards until his calves collided with a chair. He sat down with a huff, not quite as pleased as the giggling boy in his arms. Cullen’s glare softened as it drifted from his wife to his eldest child, ever quiet as she sat at the dining table, her nose buried in the yellowing pages of a battered book. The parchment was old, torn and tattered; the covers hung at an angle, their brilliant blue now faded with time. Though it must have been loved once, by someone who’d lived there long before; Maker knows why they’d left something so treasured behind. 

“Has the “ _Magnificent Mage_ ” come down from the thunderclouds yet? Maker’s breath, am I remembering that right?” 

Gwenevere tugged her mouth to the side, most likely, Cullen thought, as she decided on whether to ignore her father or sate his curiosity. “Not yet“ she divulged eventually, reluctantly. “But she’s not a mage any more; she had to give her magic to the rain clouds so they could make lightning again.”

 _And then the lightening strikes at the hearts of Ferelden’s foes, the king begs the Maker to bring her down from the sky, she’s very grateful, they fall in love; happily ever after._  It was a fanciful fable from an unspecified time, unpopular with many and banned in the circles of magi, when the circles of magi had still existed. It wasn’t a tale Cullen knew well, though he remembered enough of it to know that it wasn’t the bed-time story he’d enjoyed reading most; nor had Gwenevere enjoyed it being read to her.

“I don’t remember this being a favourite of yours?” Cullen sighed as his daughter began to pout, at the whine he could already hear; the one that had become so familiar of late. 

“I never get to read anything about magic” she grumbled, “It’s not fair, I want to know more.”

Cullen studied her carefully, waiting, watching, with an inquisitive incline of his brow. Had someone been overly open about details of his past, provoking her interest in the arcane arts? Not the parts where he’d commanded an army to victory or helped rally a city in its time of need. No, the murkier parts, the untold chapters that he’d tried to leave behind with time and nobler deeds. “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn Neve, but why the sudden interest?”

Gwenevere shrugged her shoulders, “Just curious”. Her green eyes, so like her mother’s, bore into his, unblinking for a moment that lasted too long. Then she wiped a rough hand over her face, across the freckles scattered on plump cheeks and a button nose; her attention falling once more to her fairytale. 

“Daddy look!” Elliot’s commands dragged Cullen’s eyes, and thoughts, away and toward him, “it’s a bug!” He squealed in delight at the ladybird perched upon the tip of his finger, holding it up so his father could capture a better look at the phenomenon happening at the end of his pinkie.

“So it is” Cullen smirked, “if it’s decided to live on your finger perhaps we should give it a name?”

Elliot started to babble suggestions that Cullen couldn’t quite understand, though he could have sworn he heard “Iron bull” arise more than once. He was certain their old friend would be honoured by the namesake, though a harmless insect wasn’t  _quite_  a dragon.

“Uh-oh!” Rosalia’s cry, the one that never failed to shatter Cullen’s smile, rang out from the living area, followed by the sound of bare feet on stone until she was standing in front of him; her hand outstretched and clutching a bundle of cotton looking like a cloud on her palm. “The pillow ripped” she told them with a sure nod of her head, “Nug did it.” Nug  _always_  did it, whether the curtains were hanging off the rail or a trail of crumbs leading to her room was found in the morning, it was always the poor cats fault.

“ _Rosalia Rutherford_! What have we told you about telling lies?” Cullen was certain Maerwynne’s words were intended to sound stern, however, with her back turned to them and under the stress of a busy kitchen, her tone was smoothed into a softer sound.                            

Rosalia bounced on the tips of her toes with a wild wave of her arms. “Don’t tell them unless you really, really have to!” 

Cullen tried, he really did, to mask the snort that followed her answer. “You mustn’t tell them at all” he corrected her, failing in his own attempt at a reprimand.

“Well  _you_ said that babies fall from the fade, but aunty Mia said they come from-”

“Just sit at the table  _please_ Rosa” Maerwynne sighed, “everything’s almost ready.” She turned to her husband then, dusting crumbs from her too-short nightgown, that wasn’t actually a nightgown at all, as she asked, “Will you go and get Eva?”

Cullen stood at once, placing a kiss on Elliot’s head as he sat the boy on the now empty chair. “Where is she? I had assumed she was still asleep.”

Maerwynne puffed a rogue lock of hair from her face. “In the garden, she wanted to pick berries so we can have pancakes for breakfast tomorrow,” she rolled her eyes dramatically, “Oh how I look forward to ruining those.”

“Then it’s a good job It’s my turn to make breakfast tomorrow,” Cullen mumbled as he made his way to the wide-open back door, turning to Rosa who hissed a relieved  _yes!_ “Don’t get too excited” he warned, “that means your mother’s making dinner.” 

He smiled to himself at the whining and cries of indignation he gradually left behind as he wandered further into the garden. His eyes shifted to the lake, some distance away, just to make sure Evangelina hadn’t strayed to near to it; a constant worry that nagged at him whenever his children would play in the garden. “Angel?” he called, heart hammering at her absence, “ _Maker, let her be safe._ ” Cullen walked further along, kicking through fallen blossom that lay at his feet and passing through rows of sunflowers that stood tall and proud either side of him, the guardians of the garden. He slowed the speed of his stride as he spotted Evangelina’s basket of berries abandoned on the grass ahead; he would have been concerned, if not for sound of giggling that was carried along the breeze. Cullen rounded the corner with gentle steps, his eyes narrowing in a silent curse at the small gate’s creaking as he passed through it, curiosity carrying him forwards to see what his daughter was up to. 

“Come back!” He heard her plead, laughter lilting her words. “Come back butterflies, I’m not going to hurt you.” He couldn’t help his smile, or the warmth that spread throughout his chest, as he watched his daughter run in circles beside a thick row of butterfly bushes; the creatures bursting out from within them to flutter past her outstretched arms. “Don’t go” she begged them, “please don’t fly away.” Cullen moved closer, a call of her name already poised on his tongue when she let out one final cry of “Come back!” And then nothing. Maker but the silence was deafening. 

Cullen prayed for the sound of giggling, for the frenzied uproar of a lively kitchen, for the clashing of steel or the screams that haunted his dreams, they’d all be welcome over the hellish quiet; that split second where life gives you a moment to breathe before snatching the air from your lungs.

“ _Angel…”_   His voiced cracked under the weight of a million emotions as his eyes flicked between his daughter and the five frozen butterflies that hung above her head, each one embraced in thick chunks of ice.

The young girl turned to him quickly at the exhale of her name, her amber eyes wide and wet. “Daddy?” she whimpered as if asking permission to cry, to breathe, to run to him; Cullen wasn’t sure. He fell clumsily to his knees, arms flung wide, pleading wordlessly for her to come to him; which she did, with a desperation that almost toppled him. “I didn’t mean to” she swore between broken sobs, her arms locked around his neck as she buried her face there. 

“I believe you“ Cullen cooed against her golden curls, “there’s no need to cry.” 

“I was going to tell you but Neve said not to.” 

Cullen bit back his curse, now wasn’t the best time to take the Maker’s name in vain, not when he needed all the strength that faith could offer. “You’ve done this before and Gwenevere knew?”  _For how long? Who else knows? Andraste preserve me, why didn't I see?_

Evangelina looked to him finally, her reddened eyes, so similar to his own, still glistening with unshed tears from a burden she’d held for too long. “I got mad at Rosa and made her hair burn.”

Cullen’s gut twisted at the thought, his eyes closing in guilt at the memory of punishing Rosalia just a week ago for playing with lit candles once he’d noticed her hacked-at hair. “Everything-” his shoulders heaved with his sigh, with the weight of the words he was about to say, the promise that he had no right to make.“Everything’s going to be fine, it just means we’ll have to-”   _find you help, somewhere I can keep you safe from the world and the creatures clawing at your mind_. “Find you a different tutor, one who can help you with magical studies as well.” 

“You’re not sad?” Evangelina sniffled, so meek and so cynical that Cullen never wanted to let her leave his arms, just as he hadn’t wanted to let her go the first time she’d laid in them; so small and so fragile, not ready for the world but fighting for her place in it anyway.

 _I’m frightened for you, nervous, but,_  “Not sad, no.” Cullen wiped at her running nose with his sleeve, “I just wish you would have told me.” He paused for a second, pondering whether to ask the next logical question, wondering if it was worth the guilt. “Does your mother know?”

Evangelina shook her head. “Do you have to tell her?”

“Of course I do,” Cullen captured her hand in his, encouraging her with a gentle tug when she failed to follow in his footsteps, “why wouldn’t I?” She shrugged her shaking shoulders as she started walking, then looked to him when she had nothing to say. “You don’t think this changes how we feel about you?” Cullen shook his head at the notion; he understood her being frightened of course, but his children had never lived in a world where mages spent their lives in isolation, in fear of being hunted should they dare for a chance at freedom. 

He picked up the discarded basket, along with the few berries remaining within, as he passed by. “I’ll tell her later, after we’ve eaten breakfast.” He thought back to the smell of burning bread and the sight of the coal like slices, “or tried to, anyway.” Cullen sighed as his daughter proved immune to his joke, at the sorry look in her eyes; too full of worry for someone so young. “There’s nothing in this world that could shake my love for you,” he swallowed past the lump burning in his throat, “everything’s going to be fine.”


End file.
